The Gulag State
Report finds draconian policies on incarcerated youth a violation of human rights
By Joe Piasecki 10/13/2005
When it comes to punishing kids who commit violent crimes, the United States — and California in particular — is one of the harshest places in the world.
Here, policies are so tough that treatment of youth “cannot be squared with the most fundamental tenets of human rights law,” according to a report released yesterday in downtown Los Angeles by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
At least 2,225 American prisoners began serving sentences of life with no possibility of parole before they turned 18, and most for their first serious criminal conviction, according to that report.
“Some call it a natural death sentence,” said David Berger, a Washington DC-based attorney with Human Rights Watch who helped author the report. “I’d certainly say it’s in violation of international human rights law.”
California, with 180 such prisoners, ranks behind only Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan when it comes to putting youth behind bars for good.
The report also found that punishment, especially in California, is not meted out equally to children of all races. Black youths in this state, for instance, are 22 times more likely than whites to receive sentences of life without parole.
In Los Angeles County, four juveniles were sentenced to life without parole during 2004 and the first half of 2005, according to District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. In that same time, 44 juveniles received life sentences with the possibility of parole, and a total of 265 received a prison or jail term of one year or more.
“Since a prosecutor’s job is to enforce the law as it exists,” said Gibbons, “you are asking the wrong people to comment.”
In 2000, California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 21, also known as the Juvenile Justice Initiative, which required many serious juvenile offenders to be tried as adults and let those crimes count as strikes under the Three Strikes law.
Supported and heavily funded by former Gov. Pete Wilson, the law also enhanced prosecutors’ abilities to house juvenile offenders in adult facilities.
Until earlier this year, many juveniles deemed “unfit” to be housed at CYA facilities were being kept at Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. The county Board of Supervisors removed them after months of public outcry.
At mid-year 2004, American prisons and jails held nearly 10,000 youths, according to a recent US Department of Justice report.
“It’s appalling. I’ve seen many young people turn around their lives given the possibility of rehabilitation,” said Shelley Wood, who spent 18 years as an officer and educator with California Youth Authority and founded the Stamps Youth Foundation.
“Prison is just making more criminals out of people,” said Felipe Escalante, a 25-year-old San Gabriel Valley maintenance worker who, at 15, began serving an 8-year sentence for second-degree murder.
“I was blessed to go to the CYA,” he said. “You victimize kids by sending them to prison, because older guys will victimize them. There’s no future in it. It’s ugly.”
Wood, who helped rehabilitate Escalante, is now director of development at the Bien Venidos Children’s Center in Altadena. Escalante, she said, “is the reason we cannot do this.”
But not all law enforcement officials agree.
“If they are doing life for murder,” said Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian, “I’m not terribly troubled by that. Young people who kill are, in fact, killers. … What I do think is that Amnesty International is focusing attention in the wrong place. I think we need to be studying why we have so many young killers.”
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